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Description: In this issue:
* Legal victory over police repression of unio activity and free speech in Boston
* Boycotts, pickets in support of Familias Unidas farm worker union intensify
* In November We Re...

Incarcerated FW LeMar
provides a clear call to
action in the form of
organizing the most
oppressed, exploited and
vilified in this society.
Proceeds will go directly
to legal aid and support of
FW LeMar.
Paperback, $15

A rare look at life and social
relationships viewed from
the cubicle, cash register,
hospital, factory, and
job site. The text brings
together organizers from a
handful of countries
sharing their experiences
with the trouble of working
and fighting back.
Paperback, $20

There is no better history
for the reader looking for
an overview of the history
of the Industrial Workers
of the World, and for
an understanding of its
ideas and tactics. Includes
nearly 60 photographs
and illustrations, and brief
forward from Utah Phillips.
Paperback, $15

Revised and Expanded.
A profusely illustrated
anthology including
hundreds of original
documents, speeches,
posters, and handbills
focusing on Haymarket’s
enduring influence around
the world—especially the
eight-hour workday.
Paperback, $23

An encounter between two
generations and two
traditions. The dialogue is
an effort to bring together
the anarchist and Marxist
traditions, to discuss the
writing of history by those
who make it, and to remind
us of the idea that ‘my
country is the world.’
Paperback, $15

This past summer, IWW member Anja was fired from her job at
Crocus Hill Academy, a daycare
center in St. Paul, Minn. She was
told that she was fired for talking to
current and former co-workers about
issues with their boss, Imran Khan.
Two weeks later, Anja had yet to receive her final paycheck, her personal
belongings, or a copy of her personnel file, which she had requested.
Three union members from the Twin
Cities IWW branch accompanied
Anja to the daycare to deliver a
demands letter. Khan reacted aggressively, shouting at and threatening
the union delegation, accusing Anja
of mistreating children, and calling
St. Paul police. He refused to accept
the letter, and police asked IWW
members to vacate the property.

The following day, a larger group
of IWW members leafleted the daycare. As Khan yelled from the door,
union members talked to parents
about Anja’s firing and other grievances. Upon Khan’s continued refusal
to receive the letter, branch members
conducted a call-in and social media
campaign against Crocus Hill Academy. Within a few days, Anja received
a call from the school’s new director,
begging her to give him a copy of the
demands which Khan refused to accept. She has since received her final
paycheck and an additional check for
$120 to compensate for her personal
belongings and personnel file, both of
which Khan “misplaced.”
Manipulative, lying bosses like
Imram Khan are a danger to all
working people, especially when
they punish workers for protected
activity like talking about work

Liverpool IWW: Claimant
advocacy is not a crime
By the Liverpool IWW

On Oct. 12, members and
supporters of Liverpool IWW
held an information picket
outside Williamson Square Job
Centre in the town centre. We
were one of several IWW groups
and other activist organizations
holding demonstrations at job
centres throughout the second week of October. Scottish
Unemployed Workers Network
(SUWN) called for solidarity
with claimant advocate Tony
Cox, who faced court in Forfar
on the ludicrous charges of
threatening behavior, refusing to
give his name and address and
resisting arrest. He was arrested
at an Arbroath Job Centre in
January 2015, whilst representing a highly vulnerable unemployed woman.
The SUWN assert that:
“We believe that this case
highlights the climate of fear that
is evident within many job centres, but that it is not only benefit claimants that are treated with
contempt. Welfare advisors are
also being subjected to bullying
and intimidation, as in the recent
case of Mike Vallance at High

Photo: Twin Cities IWW

Twin Cities IWW wins unpaid wages from daycare

Members of the Twin Cities IWW celebrate Anja’s victory.

conditions and steal wages. But
when we stand alone, or when we
look to the government for help, we
give up our power to fight. When we
come together with other working
people, we can get what we deserve.

Direct action works and solidarity
wins.
— This story originally appeared in
The Organizer, blog of the Twin Cities
IWW. For more information, email
twincities@iww.org.

Riggs Job Centre, when they attempt to represent, often highly
vulnerable, benefit claimants.
The SUWN will resist any and
all attempts to curb the rights of
welfare and citizen advocates to
represent the unemployed, and
we ask you to join us in our fight
to ensure that ADVOCACY IS
NOT A CRIME.”
At the picket on Oct. 12, we
distributed information provided
by Edinburgh Coalition Against
Poverty, to publicize the fact that
advocacy is not a crime. Claimants visiting the job centre took
our advice enthusiastically, and
were generally pleased that someone was taking a stand against
the U.K. Department for Work
and Pensions, and the bullying
regime inside the job centre. Our
social networking sites also got
a number of “likes” and follows
during the picket.
In fact, the response was so
positive that we will soon begin
a regular series of job centre
information distribution pickets,
offering advice, encouragement
and solidarity to claimants—who
represent some of the most vulnerable elements of the working
class.

Industrial Worker • Fall 2015

6

Industrial Worker • Fall 2015

ACQUITTED ON ALL CHARGES!
Legal victory over police repression of union activity and free speech in Boston
Resolution of Boston-based Fellow Worker
(FW) Jason’s long legal entanglement arrived on
July 21, 2015, 20 months after a violent November 2013 arrest by Cambridge, Mass. police on
a picket line at Insomnia Cookies near Harvard
University. The case spent 605 days in court.
The Boston IWW General Membership
Branch (GMB) has reported on worker campaign
initiatives—including grievances related to subminimum wage pay and independent contractor
status (employer exploitation strategy du jour)
at a hostile, unsafe working environment—since
Insomnia Cookies workers went on strike in
August 2013. A shop committee coordinated a
multi-faceted campaign, which included Harvard
Student Labor Action Movement (SLAM) and
Boston University Student Labor Action Project (SLAP) activists demonstrating in the fall of
2013. The Cambridge Police Department’s (CPD)
response was often disproportionate, despite their
already low public opinion after arresting Henry
Louis Gates, a prominent black Harvard professor,
sparked a coast-to-coast conversation on police
racism.
On Nov. 14, 2013, 12 to 15 people picketed
for approximately an hour. CPD officer Ed Burke
set off a cop riot wherein officers tackled FW
Jason, who was battered and arrested. GMB members bailed him out for $100. He was charged
with misdemeanor assault and battery on a police
officer, resisting arrest and disorderly conduct.
Thanks to the National Lawyers Guild (NLG)
referral service, FW Jason was represented by
Myoung J. Joun, then Jeffrey Wiesner of Shapiro,
Weissberg & Garin, LLP and Alexandra H. Deal,
an associate solo practitioner, as the district attorney (DA). The CPD procrastinated and did not
show to hearings for more than year. The court
insisted that FW Jason take an anger management
program and admit his supposed guilt, but compulsory anger management after being attacked by
volatile cops was never considered a serious option
by FW Jason or his supporters.
The Boston GMB raised approximately $5,000
between strike and legal support, with $2,800
offered to the lawyers, approximately $200 going
to FW Jason and the rest to strikers. Funds came
from Wobblies all over the world thanks in part to
publicity from IWW Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee (IWOC) activist FW Brianna.
Four Boston Wobblies served as witnesses. I
also took pictures during the melee. Photo evidence showed a vicious assault, with a smiling cop,
Burke, presiding. Attorneys Wiesner and Deal
exposed cop lies and the CPD had no pictures,
video or civilian witnesses of their own.
Wobblies witnessed officers pushing and
shoving. When 140-pound FW Jason stopped to
protest the aggression, Burke grabbed FW Jason’s

Photo: GDC Local 13, Boston

By GDC Local 13, Boston

Boston Wobs stand proud with FW Jason (center).

flag and hit himself with it. Another cop used a
chokehold and the sum of their excessive force left
FW Jason bloodied, without his eyeglasses and in
significant pain.
Defense witnesses comported themselves better and were more credible about the lead up to
the violence. After Wobblies testified and Wiesner
delivered closing arguments dramatically more
logical than the prosecutor, whose style mixed palpable inexperience and vague McCarthyism, jurors
deliberated for just 10 minutes before delivering a
verdict of “not guilty” on all three charges.
The prosecutor was obviously hoping that
union activity and picketing would be perceived as
inherently disorderly.
Wobblies facing charges or who are witnesses
should be prepared to answer questions designed
to alienate jurors. A fellow worker on cross examination was asked to explain the meaning of the
black-and-red union flag that the DA admitted
into evidence as a weapon. Although objection to
blatant red-baiting was sustained, a question on
the meaning of direct action was allowed. Nonetheless this was an opportunity to remind jurors
that we were not preventing anyone from entering
the store! Obviously this tactic—underestimating growing public awareness of police and state
oppression—was another miscalculation by the
prosecution.
Legal defense exposed an important need in
our work: organizing and economic justice intersect with resistance against police oppression and
the prison industrial complex. At pretrial dates fellow workers watched the DA recommend jail time
and steep restitution for petty transgressions by
various defendants, all people of color. A 61-yearold black immigrant woman accused of stealing
three pieces of thrift store clothing—suspiciously
valued by the state at over $500—was facing
jail time and deportation if terms of release were
violated. This was just one example. FW Jonathan,
one of the Insomnia strikers and a young man of
color, was arrested around the same time in a drug
war raid targeting housemates. Unlike FW Jason,
he spent three months in jail, with an initial bail

of $100,000 (though it was reduced by half, then
ultimately to $10,000). A comparison of these defendant experiences dissolves the border between
class struggle and criminalization, although it does
highlight the obvious class and racial inequality in
our society.
Although the DA pressed us to say that the arrest was a successful publicity stunt for an obscure
group of hotheads, a premise we refused to accept,
the Insomnia campaign did not survive the pressure and diversion of resources from shop-floor
organizing to legal support. Until recently FW Jason has also struggled to stay afloat and find work.
Meanwhile, FW Jonathan’s incarceration cost him
his job and a semester of community college.
The justice system is at war against the poor,
and the Boston GMB is at work developing a
more comprehensive strategic analysis rooted
in collaboration with the prison abolition and
anti-oppression movements. The General Defense
Committee (GDC) Local 13 in Boston has begun
meeting regularly again and plans to report more
on activity that has become a major part of GMB
member effort: court support, including the
Boston GMB’s substantial contribution toward
FW Jonathan’s bail. Boston Wobblies plan to
increase participation in the IWOC; we have been
working with NLG activists and plan to establish
a bail fund. Boston GMB members organized
an NLG Legal Observer Training in May as the
presence of legal observers at the arrest would have
been another advantage. Local FWs have observed
at a variety of actions in recent months. Area
Cop Watch and American Civil Liberties Union
(ACLU) trainings have also been informative
about filming the police.
The outcome of FW Jason’s case could not
have been better: he had representation not only
capable of winning but also familiar with our
politics and respectful of our work. FW Jason
walked away inconvenienced but acquitted and
we all enjoyed the humiliation of the cops’ defeat.
Our community is stronger and our organizing
more representative of working-class composition
going forward.
FW Jason thanks all his supporters, especially
his partner FW Sarah, his attorneys, and Wobs
near and far. To be blunt, however, he now thinks
“purposefully getting arrested is stupid,” although
that was no one’s intention and picketers were
compliant. He values economic disruption, but
is critical of civil disobedience as employed by
the mainstream unions, compromising already
marginalized workers’ lives without material benefit. “It’s playing into the state’s hands by sucking
money and energy out of organizing work, but
I’m determined as ever to support workers. I’m
not going to be deterred from supporting workers’
rights,” he said.

7

THE REBEL SPIRIT RESOUNDS

Wobblies in Colorado to commemorate the life & legacy of Joe Hill
The rebel spirit of Joe Hill will resound in
greater Denver and Boulder, Colo., this November
with two major programs that express Joe’s legacy as
a proud immigrant worker.
First, the Bread and Roses Worker’s Cultural
Center in Denverwill join with the syndicated
Boulder-based radio program/organization, eTown,
to present a memorial concert at Macky Auditorium on the University of Colorado campus in
Boulder. This show, which will subsequently be
nationally radiocast, was originally scheduled for
September but was postponed until a still-to-beannounced November date. Specifics about the
concert will be announced soon, but the production staff at eTown and Bread and Roses say it will
feature top-line performers and will emphasize the
extraordinary contributions immigrant workers
have made and are making in the process of developing a workers’ world.
The second program will be on Nov. 20:
straight from Salt Lake City’s hallmark Joe Hill
commemoration on Nov. 19, Grammy Award
nominated musician John McCutcheon will
perform the musical play “Joe Hill’s Last Will” in
Denver. In keeping with the immigrant theme, this
show will be at the Civic Theater, home to the area’s
oldest and most renowned immigrant-worker based
theater group, Su Teatro. Su Teatro grew out of
the farmworker struggles and has since developed
a highly successful and internationally respected
playwriting, musical and performing troupe based
in Denver.

Further details and ticket information are
available at http://www.workersbreadandroses.org.
If possible, some proceeds from the events will be
used to re-establish a space for the Bread and Roses
Center, which has a large lending library as well as
exhibits and displays on the Ludlow Massacre of
1914, the Columbine mine strikes and massacres

of 1927, the P-9 strike (on August 17, 1985 when
1,500 members of Local P-9, United Food and
Commercial Workers Union [UFCW], struck the
Hormel meatpacking plant in Austin, Minn.);
IWW western history; and the life and legacy of
Joe Hill. The center has been closed since losing its
home in April 2014.

In November We Remember The Coal Miners’ Strike
& Columbine Mine Massacre of 1927
In November, Colorado remembers that
the IWW coal miners’ strike of 1927 on the
heels of the Columbine coal mine massacre,
in the fields between Denver and Boulder,
succeeded in bringing unions to Colorado
coal miners. In 1989, the Denver IWW
and Fellow Worker and artist Carlos Cortez
spread a portion of Joe Hill’s ashes on the
previously unmarked graves of six of the
Columbine martyrs in the Lafayette, Colo.,
cemetery.
For information that finally dissects how
Joe was framed, see William Adler’s book,
“The Man Who Never Died: the Life, Times
and Legacy of a Labor Icon” (Bloomsbury
USA, 2012). Also check out “Slaughter in
Serene, the Columbine Coal Strike Reader,”
published in 2005 by the Bread and Roses
Workers’ Cultural Center & the Industrial
Workers of the World, available from both
http://store.iww.org and
http://www.workersbreadandroses.org.

Photo: reuther.wayne.edu

By x333295

A view of the bullet-ridden exterior of the Walsenburg
IWW Hall after violence broke out between strikers and
the State Police during the Colorado Coal Strike.

Joe Hill concert in Berlin to benefit prisoners’ union
By Elmore Y.
There will be a concert on the 100th anniversary of Joe Hill’s execution in Berlin on Nov. 19. You
will be able to see acts such as the Overall Brigade
from Cologne, who play Wobbly songs and other
American working-class classics in a hobo skiffle
style. The band performs with a banjolele, tea-chest
base and accordion. The German-French duo
Bernd Köhler & Blandine Bonjour will play—besides some tunes like “Bread and Roses”—mostly
European workers songs in a fine and dignified folk
style. Wobbly G-town Johnny—an American who
is somehow stranded in Göttingen—will contribute a classic American folk set. Atze Wellblech is
a duo from Berlin which includes violinist Paul
Geigerzähler who has gained some fame in Eastern
Europe folk music with his Sorbian music group
Berlinska Droha. Atze Wellblech is worth seeing
only for the weird looking DIY double bass that
musician Hans built with his own hands. It sounds
quite powerful.
The Joe Hill Organizing Committee is very
proud to announce an act from the United States.

Donald L. Dalton will perform songs from his
band Sons of Hanzo, from Salt Lake City and
San Pedro. The band’s musicians are linked to the
IWW and the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU). We told each group this rule
for the event: every band shall play a song written
by or about Joe Hill at the beginning and the end
of their set.
The venue where the concert is being held
seems to fit perfectly with the theme: Supamolly
has a long tradition in the once famous Berlin
squatters’ movement. It is run by a collective that
still claims a political mission as well as fair conditions both for musicians and the staff. The name
Supamolly stems from a hoax story in the Berlin
yellow press around a “super molotov cocktail”
that squatters reportedly had constructed during
the wild years around 1990. This became a joke
amongst squatters because it was just a two-gallon
bottle of Lambrusco wine that was found by the
police in a roof garden.
The proceeds from the concert will benefit
the recently-founded Gefangenengewerkschaft/
Bundesweite Organisation (GG/BO), a prisoners’

union. GG/BO was founded by Olli Rast, a militant left-winger and bookstore worker, who was
convicted of arson of German military equipment
and alleged conspiracy. Inside Berlin-Tegel prison,
he became a Wobbly and started organizing, which
he continues as the union’s spokesman after being
set free. The prisoners’ union grew enormously
during the last two years. It now has around 700
members in 50 German prisons, although prison
management denies fundamental rights to unionize
and uses union-busting measures against members
and their representatives.
But isn’t it a great story? You put a Wobbly to
jail and what you get is a prisoners’ union! Olli
Rast will present his union and host the concert in
Berlin. If you have money and some time, come
over and join us!

Industrial Worker • Fall 2015

8

Industrial Worker • Fall 2015

Boycotts, pickets in support of Familias
Unidas farm worker union intensify
Bellingham, Wash. – The boycott of Sakuma
Bros. Farms Inc., Driscoll’s, and Häagen-Dazs
berry ice creams continues to spread. At their
36th convention, held in Hawaii in May 2015,
the International Longshore and Warehouse
Union (ILWU) passed a supporting resolution,
stating
“RESOLVED: that the ILWU calls upon
other labor organizations, and legislators and
congressional delegations to support a boycott
of Sakuma Brothers Farms, Häagen-Dazs, and
Driscoll’s berries until the demands of Familias
Unidas por La Justicia are met.”
In September 2015, the IWW General Convention passed a resolution in support of Familias
Unidas. The resolution calls on all Wobblies and
IWW branches to support the boycott, adopt the
resolution, and send a letter to Familias Unidas,
Driscoll’s, and Sakuma Bros. Farms.
Familias Unidas por la Justicia (FUJ) is the
independent farm workers union formed by
more than 400 migrant workers employed by
the 2,000-acre Sakuma Bros. Farms Inc., located
in Skagit County near the town of Burlington,
Wash. The union grew out of a series of strikes
beginning in the summer of 2013 in response to
low piece rate wages and deplorable living and
working conditions on the corporate farm. During the 2015 berry harvest, Familias Unidas members struck several times over piece rates, working
hours, and other field conditions. Sakuma Bros.,
now headed by new President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Danny Weeden, has refused to
negotiate in good faith. A large picket on Labor
Day by FUJ members and supporters (including
the Whatcom-Skagit IWW) succeeded in blocking trucks loaded with fresh-picked berries from
entering the processing shed.
To pressure the corporation to negotiate, recognize the union, and introduce a $15-per-hour
2015
Statement of Ownership, Management, and Circulation
1. Publication Title: Industrial Worker
2. Publication Number: 263-780
3. Filing Date: 10/15/15
4. Issue Frequency: 10 per year
5. Number Issues Published Annually: 10
6. Annual Subscription Price: $18
7. Complete Mailing Address of Known Office of Publication: P.O. Box 180195,
Chicago, IL 60618
Contact Person: Randall Jamrok
Telephone: 773-728-0996
8. Complete Mailing Address of Headquarters: P.O. Box 180195, Chicago, IL
60618
9. Full Names and Complete Mailing Address of Publisher, Editor, and Managing
Editor
Publisher: Industrial Workers of the World, P.O. Box 180195, Chicago, IL 60618
Editor: Diane Krauthamer, 3713 Huntington Street NW, Washington, DC 20015
Managing Editor: Diane Krauthamer, 3713 Huntington Street NW, Washington,
DC 20015
10. Owner: Industrial Workers of the World, P.O. Box 180195, Chicago, IL 60618
11. Known Bondholders: None
12. Tax Status: The purpose, function and nonprofit status of this organization and
the tax exempt status for federal income tax purposes: Has Not Changed during
preceding 12 Months
13. Publication Title: Industrial Worker

Photo: Familias Unidas por la Justicia

By x331980

Familias Unidas members and supporters block the entrance to the Sakuma processing plant on Labor Day 2015.
IWW legal advisors informed security that picket blockades are protected activity under labor law, and were allowed to proceed by county police.

minimum wage, FUJ has called for a boycott
of Sakuma berries and the principal distributor,
Driscoll’s of Watsonville, Calif. Driscoll’s distributes Sakuma and other berries internationally.
Häagen-Dazs is a major purchaser.
Wobblies, members of other unions, Jobs with
Justice, students, various political groups, and
environmental organizations have joined pickets at
grocery stores. These are aimed at educating shoppers about the farm workers’ fight with Sakuma,
and promote the boycott of Driscoll’s and HäagenDazs. Pickets began at stores in Bellingham last
fall, spurred by Western Washington University’s
Students for Farmworker Justice, and joined early
on by Whatcom-Skagit IWW, Jobs with Justice
and individual labor activists. Initial picket targets
14. Issue Date for Circulation Data Below: April 2015
15. Extent and Nature of Circulation: Newspaper
Average No. Copies Each Issue During Preceding 12 Months/No. Copies of Single
Issue Published Nearest to Filing Date:
a. Total Copies Printed: 2000/1626
b. Paid Circulation:
(1) Mailed Outside-County Paid Subscriptions on PS Form 3541: 1700/1302
(2) Mailed In-County Paid Subscriptions on PS Form 3541: 300/324
(3) Paid Distribution Outside the Mails: --/-(4) Paid Distribution by other classes of mail: --/-c. Total Paid Distribution: 2000/1626
d. Free or Nominal Rate Distribution
(1) Free or Nominal Rate Outside-County Copies on PS Form 3541: --/-(2) Free or Nominal Rate Inside-County Copies on PS Form 3541: --/-(3) Free or Nominal Rate Copies Mailed at Other Classes: --/-(4) Free or Nominal Rate Distribution Outside the Mail: --/-e. Total Free or Nominal Rate Distribution: --/-f. Total Distribution: 2000/1626
g. Copies Not Distributed: 250/238
h. Total: 2250/1864
i. Percent Paid: 100%/100%
16. Total circulation includes electronic copes: N/A
17. Publication of Statement of Ownership
If the publication is a general publication, publication of this statement is required.
Will be printed in the November issue of this publication.
18. Signature and Title of Owner: Randall Jamrok, Publisher, 10/15/15

included Fred Meyer and Haggen Foods, and have
now spread to Costco stores in Seattle, Bellingham, and Burlington, Wash., and San Jose, Calif.
Whole Foods in Portland, Ore., Detroit, Mich.,
San Francisco and Oakland, Cal., and Puget Consumers Co-op in Seattle. Some boycott pickets
have been noisy affairs inside stores.
The Whatcom-Skagit IWW in northwest
Washington calls on all IWW branches and
groups to organize boycott pickets at any stores
that sell Driscoll’s and Häagen-Dazs ice creams
with berries if management refuses initial polite
requests to support the boycott. The pickets
are intended to spread the boycott of those two
primary Sakuma customers by informing shoppers not to purchase those products. The boycott
does not target the stores themselves, only those
products.
So, fellow workers, get started now. First ask
store management to stop selling Driscoll’s berries and Häagen-Dazs berry ice creams. If they
continue to carry those products, then proceed
with informational pickets. Full information is
available online at http://boycottsakumaberries.
com. Unions and other organizations passing
resolutions in support of Familias Unidas and
the boycott are requested to send a written copy
to Danny Weeden, Sakuma Bros. Farms, 17790
Cook Road, Burlington, WA 98223 USA, and
also Familias Unidas, P.O. Box 1206, Burlington,
WA 98233. Additional information is available
from the Whatcom-Skagit IWW (see the IWW
Directory on page 4), and the Familias Unidas
por la Justicia Facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/FamiliasUnidas.

9

Youth shelter workers confront boss
The chants barely subsided as they pushed
their way into the main office. Negotiations at
the Janus Youth Shelter in Portland, Ore., were
almost entirely halted as the workers saw the
prospect of miniscule raises, layoffs, and cuts
in services for the homeless at-risk youth they
serve. Armed with a group of almost 30 supporters, the workers moved into the Janus Youth
Shelter’s main office on Aug. 28, to confront
Executive Director Dennis Morrow, who was
sitting there seemingly waiting for the protesters
to show. Morrow demanded that workers leave
as he headed to a back office. Determined, the
group of workers refused to let him escape into
a nondescript room and demanded that he hear
their demands.
This is just the most recent escalation in a
growing conflict between management of the
Portland nonprofit and the union, which is one of
the few IWW “contract shops.” The workers at Janus perform all of the union functions, from the
original organizing drive to the negotiations over
new contracts. Their shop is one of several Janus
shops, with some also organized with the IWW
and then some with the American Federation of
State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), all of which are seeing wage stagnation
and possible staffing cuts. This is not a new story
for care workers of most stripes, where shelters,
group homes, and skilled care facilities under the
nonprofit or semi-public sector banner are seeing
the institutionalization of poverty wages.
“My co-workers and I deal with a lot of challenging, sometimes traumatizing, work,” said
one worker, Tyler Razz, as he addressed Morrow.
“On top of the vicarious trauma that we experience, and the specialized set of skills we develop
to deal with the escalating conflict, and providing
emotional support and stability for these homeless
youth, we have to worry about keeping ourselves
out of poverty with these $10.25-an-hour wages.”
Cuts have been a consistent feature of Janus
negotiations through the last several years,
particularly in 2011 after workers at both Harry’s
Mother and the Street Light Youth Shelter—two
other local nonprofits—were denied promised
raises. This came directly after Janus attempted
to force any fired worker who is seeking to appeal
into formal arbitration, which is financially impossible for a volunteer-run union like the IWW
because the workers would have to pay for this
type of arbitration.
Many of the cuts came as Janus claimed that
they were failing to get the funding they needed
from the state to meet wage needs.
“Where was the union when Multnomah
County increased [the] minimum wage for its
employees to $15 an hour, and I was at the table
asking what are they going to do for contract
workers?” said Morrow when challenged on
the low wages. “I didn’t see the union there.” In

Photo: Daniel Vincent

By Shane Burley

Janus Youth Shelter workers picket on Aug. 28, 2015 in Portland, Ore.

response to this several organizers pointed out
that Morrow currently receives a six-figure salary
for his position as executive director, a wage that
workers claim is far beyond the norm for positions such as his.
“Dennis, how much will you sacrifice to pull
your workers out of poverty?” asked Jonathan
Steiner, an organizer with the IWW. “You have
made over $100,000 for over a decade. How do
you justify that? How do you look people in the
eye when they are nearly homeless working for
you?”
This was the first major action in support of
the Janus workers, organized jointly by groups
such as the Portland Solidarity Network, Portland
Jobs with Justice, $15Now, and the Black Rose
Anarchist Federation. As negotiations move
forward the workers are committing to rely on
open organizing, both inside and outside of the
workplace, as a way to put pressure on Janus to
raise the wages to a standard that can better meet
with Portland’s rising living costs.
The coalition organized a second picket to
coincide with negotiations on Sept. 29, 2015,
with almost 30 supporters. It was at this stage that
the negotiations hit a dead end, with some work-

ers reporting that they had filed National Labor
Relations Board (NLRB) charges over “bad faith”
bargaining. During negotiations, there had been a
threat made about layoffs due to a drop in funding. Management had promised to return to this
negotiation with two proposals: one including
using smaller staffs and maintaining raises, and a
second proposal with small raises and keeping the
staffing levels on shift. Instead, they returned with
a new raise structure that only brought a $0.25
raise above the two-year wage cap.
Workers were originally set to vote on Oct.
10-11, but they got an extension to the following weekend to make a decision. If the offer is
rejected then the negotiations head into mediations that, while non-binding, bring in government-funded oversight in an attempt to bring
resolution. This is not the first time that Janus has
stalled in negotiations with the IWW, but with
the shrinking wage offers from management and
the declining conditions of the shelter this could
be the fight that determines what the shelters
will look like both for the staff and the clients it
serves.

Industrial Worker • Fall 2015

10

Industrial Worker • Fall 2015

ADDING SALT TO THE BERN
Early in July 2015, the Kentucky IWW took
to the west end of Louisville to spread the message of the One Big Union (OBU) at a local rally
for presidential candidate Bernie Sanders. Our
branch action, far from endorsing a candidate,
was about messaging, about “salting.” It was
about recognizing that Sanders supporters—who
could remain supporters themselves even if they
joined the union—are likely to sympathize with
our cause. We spoke with union workers, activists,
emergency medical technicians, environmentalists, artists, educators, and students. We signed up
nearly 100 people to receive our newsletter. We
found like-minded folk to collaborate with down
the line. Our online readership and membership
immediately grew.
To “salt” an event doesn’t mean to endorse an
event. It means to recognize an opportunity—an
opportunity where working people are present
en masse and looking to band together—to most
effectively spread the message and cause of the
IWW. And, in my mind, the Sanders candidacy
speaks to a political consciousness that is learning
to value unionization and worker solidarity in
a way those things haven’t been valued in quite
some time. I, for one, will not pass up a chance to
soap box to a primed audience.
After we salted portions of the crowd with
our message of the importance of organizing and
promoting workers’ rights and solidarity, it was
brought to my attention that something needs to
be made clear: the IWW endorses no candidate

In November
I remember /
my uncle
Antti Saikkonen
(1891-1917) /
early IWW
member
from 1908
— Harry Siitonen,
Bay Area GMB

and distances itself from all electoral politics. We
are not a political group, but a workers’ union.
We organize for workers, not for politicians! Historically, this is an important point of the IWW,
and that history need not be rehashed here.
And so, without endorsing Sanders, Wobblies
should pay attention to the climate that surrounds his candidacy—if for no other reason than
because working folk should be reminded, again
and again, that the IWW has fought throughout
its proud history for the rights of working people.
Rather than harping on electoral politics,
Wobblies might listen to some of what Fellow
Worker (FW) Mick Parsons from our Kentucky
IWW branch says:
“Whether it’s in your workplace, your local
bar, the gym, or a political rally, to be a Wob
means not keeping it under wraps. It doesn’t always mean being obnoxious, either. But if, in the
process of discussing recent world and political
happenings, you happen to introduce someone to
the OBU, then there’s nothing wrong with that. If
you are a musician, poet, or other artist, and your
Wobbliness comes out in your art—so be it. Be
aware and be a good messenger. In order to build
a new world out of the ashes of the old—we need
everyone. That’s solidarity.”
Our branch, and I imagine all IWW branches,
contain socialists, Marxists, Maoists, Rooseveltstyle democrats, anarchists, and the like. All
branches represent teachers, miners, writers,
electricians, pipe fitters, dock builders, musicians,
and so on. There are Wobs who are political junk-

ies and Wobs who’d rather not see what CNN has
to say about this election cycle. The IWW is the
umbrella organization for all these people, and
this is why the primary concern needs to be, as
FW Mick says, being a good—which means an
effective—messenger.
So to borrow from FW Mick once more
(and this time to paraphrase), whether you’re at a
festival, in a meeting, or just engaged in some idle
talk, be a Wob wherever you go.

Photo: provided by Harry Siitonen

By FW Patrick

Photo: Amanda L. Hay

Kentucky IWW spreads the message of the One Big Union at Bernie Sanders rally

11

Photo: Nicholas Patti

FORMER STARBUCKS
WORKER WINS
SETTLEMENT,
RECEIVES BACK PAY

By FW Nicholas Patti

It was 10 years in the making, but the payout
for workers organizing with the IWW Starbucks
Workers Union (SWU) in New York City was sweet:
$50,745, before taxes. That figure was the amount
Starbucks paid to Joe Agins, Jr. in 2015 after illegally firing him in 2005 for union organizing,
according to Stuart Lichten, attorney for the IWW,
and according to the 2015 settlement agreement.
Fellow Worker (FW) Joe Agins, Jr. was employed
at the 2nd Ave. & 9th Street store in the East Village
of Manhattan when Starbucks fired him in 2005.
He was an active union organizer with the SWU at
that time.
“Agins is very courageous,” said Lichten. “He
was fired and gave up his job for this, and it took 10
years, which is a travesty.”
“It’s important because if workers do not protect
their rights, the rights disappear,” Lichten continued.
In addition to the back pay, included in the
2015 settlement agreement between Starbucks and
the IWW are the following terms, according to
Lichten:
• Workers may discuss union business on-thejob.
• Terms and conditions of employment may be
discussed.
• Union business may be posted on store bulletin
boards.
• Discrimination against Starbucks employees
for union organizing regarding work opportunities
is prohibited.
• Off-duty employees may enter the back area of
the store.
—FW Randall Jamrok, IWW General SecretaryTreasurer, contributed reporting

Industrial Worker • Fall 2015

12

Industrial Worker • Fall 2015

THE TRANS-PACIFIC PARTNERSHIP:
A Crowning Achievement for Global Capitalists,
Deadly Storm for Workers & the Environment

In November
We Remember
our dear friend
Carlos Cortez:
Wobbly poet, artist, and lifelong
advocate of the
idea of industrial
democracy.
- Carol and Gary Cox

become meaningless, impotent shells. The TPP
will nullify any ability by government at any level
to regulate trade, or raise labor and environmental standards. Decisions affecting our daily lives
will rest in the hands of secret tribunals staffed
by corporate lawyers. Aldous Huxley and George
Orwell couldn’t have thought this stuff up in their
wildest dreams. Welcome one-world capitalist
government!
With the details of this clandestine nightmare laid bare, it should become apparent to
labor unions, environmental groups, food safety
advocates, civil rights activists, community groups
and small businesses that it’s high time for united
and concerted action—in the streets, in the work
places, in our cities and towns to stop this disaster
in its tracks. Obama is in favor of the TPP, Hillary
Clinton is for it, the Republicans are for it—only
the people will stop it. IWW branches nationwide
should play a major role in educating and organizing the resistance. While many are criticizing
the TPP in their own cubbyholes and within their
own organizations, no one else is calling for organizing joint resistance. We should organize a mass
meeting and invite all those who are concerned
and affected to plan coordinated opposition. This
is the modern mantle of “one big union.” And
this is what the IWW should be all about. What
other issue out there adversely affects so many
workers worldwide? According to a recent New
York Times/CBS New York poll, nearly two-thirds
(63 percent) of Americans are skeptical of these
agreements, and are in favor of trade protection
and stronger environmental regulations. Someone
needs to tap this keg, and let it flow. Let it be us.

Free Voices Remembers

Mania Schocat
Russian revolutionary jailed and
escaped to Turkish-occupied
Palestine in early part of the 20th
century, campaigned for Arab
and Jewish workers’ unity.
Organized Arab peasants associated with British Independent
Labour Party.

Announcement placed by
Raymond S. Solomon

Photo: Wikimedia Commons

With U.S. President Barack Obama’s fast
track authorization in place, global capitalism is
poised to unleash its full fury on workers and the
environment with passage of the Trans-Pacific
Partnership (TPP). Yet most working people either in the United States or elsewhere are scarcely
aware of the deadly impact that the TPP will
have on the rights, health and the quality of life
for millions of people. Even members of the U.S.
Congress and their staff are only allowed to see
the text of the agreement if they agree not to take
notes or discuss the details in public. In fact, the
measure isn’t really much about trade at all, and
more about attacks on internet freedom, environmental protections, and affordable medication.
However, thanks to WikiLeaks, we know many of
the gory details.
If passed, the TPP would join the United
States along with 11 other countries along the
Pacific Rim, including Canada, Mexico, Vietnam,
Japan and Australia in a “free trade zone” covering
nearly 40 percent of the world’s economy. All of
Europe would be tacked on at a later date. The
real thrust of the TPP is about strengthening
and guaranteeing corporations’ ability to protect
and extend their intellectual property rights
(drug patents, copyrights, etc.), and to guarantee
they will be compensated by governments for
any profits they might lose from having to meet
decent public labor and environmental standards.
What’s left of any semblance of democracy will be
thrown out the window. Decisions formerly made
by local, state or federal governments will now be
made by a secret tribunal appointed by the corpo-

rations called the investor-state dispute settlement
(ISDS)—an instrument of public international
law that grants an investor the right to use dispute
settlement proceedings against a foreign government. As the progressive economist Dean Baker
recently explained in Common Dreams, “[the]
TPP… is about getting special deals for businesses
that they would have difficulty getting through
the normal political process.”
For example, oil and gas companies who
think they should be able to drill everywhere
will be able to get state and local laws restricting fracking overturned. Similarly, the big banks
and finance industry will be able to roll back
any sort of regulations put in place through the
Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer
Protection Act in the United States, or similar
legislation in other countries. Also, “the food and
pesticide industries will be able to limit the ability
of governments to impose environmental and
safety regulations,” according to Baker. The TPP
will potentially dismantle labeling requirements
on clothes, toys, electronics, tools, etc. Geared to
protect the “intellectual property” of multinationals, it will undermine generic drug production
and governmental controls on quality and pricing.
As Baker so aptly put, “…these trade deals
will set up a new legal structure that goes outside
existing systems in the U.S. and elsewhere...these
secret tribunals will effectively make their own
law. The trade deals allow no appeal back to U.S.
courts or the courts of any other country.” The
U.S. Congress, Occupational Safety and Health
Administration (OSHA), Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), even the Supreme Court, will

Photo: provided by IWW General Headquarters

By FW Mike Stout

13

IN NOVEMBER WE REMEMBER
STEELWORKER, WOBBLY ED MANN
By Staughton Lynd

Photos: Kent State University Libraries. Special Collections and Archives

As far as I know, Ed Mann was the only
member of the IWW in Youngstown, Ohio in the
years after World War II. He was an ex-Marine
who publicly opposed U.S. wars in Korea and
Vietnam, an ardent member of the American
Civil Liberties Union, and a socialist with a small
“s.” He was president of Local 1462, United
Steelworkers of America (USW) for three terms
ending with the closing of the Youngstown mill in
1978-1979, and thereafter the animating spirit of
the Workers’ Solidarity Club of Youngstown.
Extracts from Ed Mann’s autobiography
appear as an appendix to my book “Solidarity
Unionism.” I remember Ed especially in connection with three things.

You’ve Got To Be There

Born in Toledo, Ohio, Ed Mann settled in
Youngstown when he got out of the Marines,
went to work at the Brier Hill steel mill, and
stayed there until the mill shut down. While at
Brier Hill he took part in a number of successful
job actions and wildcat strikes. One of them is
remembered as “The Wildcat Over Tony’s Death,”
described below:
Tony, a well-liked older employee, was on
the verge of retirement. About a week before his
scheduled last day of work, he was run over by a
big heavy truck and died.
The truck that killed Tony had no warning
horn alerting nearby workers when the truck was
going to back up. The local union had grieved the
absence of any warning device on the trucks. The
company rejected the grievance out of hand.
Ed heard about Tony’s death after he clocked
in for the afternoon shift.
Getting up on a bench in the washroom he
asked: “Who’s next? Who’s going to get killed
next? Don’t we give a damn about Tony?” The
guys agreed to walk out.
The men gathered at the nearby union hall.
Phone calls were made to friends on the midnight
and morning shifts and a list of safety demands
compiled. Production stopped. The mill was
down. The company consented to negotiate and
then, in Ed’s words, “agreed to everything.”
Ed’s reflection included the observation: “We
made the steel…That’s a feeling of power. And
it isn’t something you’re doing as an individual.
You’re doing it as a group.” He also observed:
“I had credibility…It wasn’t prepared timing.
It fell into place. You’ve got to recognize those
situations. Be there when there are credible steps
to take. Some people, it never happens in their
lives. I was lucky.”
My wife Alice and I have borrowed the
term “accompaniment” from Archbishop Oscar
Romero of El Salvador. People on the Left tend to
think of themselves as “organizers.” Too often this
means coming into a workplace or a community,

Occupation of the U.S. Steel administrative headquarters in Youngstown in January 1980.

After the Brier Hill mill shut down, Ed felt
able to say and do things that would have gotten
him fired had he still been an employee.
Shortly before Christmas 1979, U.S. Steel
announced that it was closing all its Youngstown
facilities. Feeling ran high because the company
had clearly stated, on TV and over the mill public
address system, that it had no plans of closing.
In January 1980 a mass meeting convened at the
USW Local 1330 union hall, just up a hill from
U.S. Steel’s Youngstown headquarters.
Area politicians went to the mike but had
nothing to suggest. Then Ed spoke. His own mill
was down, his local union all but disbanded. The
gist of his remarks can be found on pages 153154 of my book “The Fight Against Shutdowns.”
A white steel worker speaking to a predominantly
white crowd of fellow workers, Ed read a long
quotation from Frederick Douglass. It included
the famous words: “Power concedes nothing
without a demand. It never did and it never will.
Find out what people will submit to and you will
find out the exact measure of injustice and wrong
which will be imposed upon them.” Then Ed said:
“Now, I’m going down that hill and I’m going
into that building. And any one that doesn’t want
to go along doesn’t have to but I’m sure there are
those who’ll want to. And...we’re going to stay
there until they meet with Bob Vasquez [president
of the U.S. Steel local].”
When Ed finished, Vasquez said: “Like Ed
told you, there’s no free lunch.” The crowd

Ed Mann in agitational mode.

seemed to spring to its feet as one, and streamed
down the hill toward the company administration
building. The next thing that I heard was tinkling
glass as the front door was incapacitated.

I Think There’s A Better Way

Ed explained very simply the different state
of affairs that he hoped would one day come into
existence:
“The Wobblies say, ‘Do away with the wage
system.’ For a lot of people that’s pretty hard to
take. What the Wobblies mean is, you’ll have
what you need. The wage system has destroyed us.
If I work hard I’ll get ahead, but if I’m stronger
than Jim over here, maybe I’ll get the better job
and Jim will be sweeping floors. But maybe Jim
has four kids. The wage system is a very divisive
thing. It’s the only thing we have now, but it’s
very divisive.
“Maybe I’m dreaming but I think there’s a
better way...”

Industrial Worker • Fall 2015

14

Industrial Worker • Fall 2015

By the IWW Incarcerated Workers
Organizing Committee
While we know capitalism exploits every member of the working class, an often forgotten group
is prisoners of the state. In the United States, these
workers are legally enslaved under the 13th Amendment, which prohibits slavery “except as punishment for a crime.” More than 3 million souls are
abused through destructive incarceration, with millions more on probation, parole, and legal discrimination after release. Exploited for pennies or dollars
a day, there are few sections of the working class
with more revolutionary potential and more reason
to overthrow capitalism than those abandoned into
the largest prison system in world history.
Increasingly, people in prison are putting
their very lives on the line to end state torture and
exploitation. From labor strikes in Georgia and
Alabama, to hunger strikes in California, to mass
actions across the country, prisoners and IWW
members are demanding change. We started the
IWW’s Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee (IWOC) in response to prisoners reaching out
for support. Now, 21 months later, there are nearly
600 IWW members in prison. (Find our newsletter
and more at http://www.iwoc.noblogs.org).
As a revolutionary union our role is clear: work
in solidarity with those incarcerated to organize,

improve conditions, and shut down this oppressive system. We have members who participated in
prison shut-downs, strikes, and collective actions.
Together we have combatted torture, retaliation,
and false medical diagnoses. It is with a call from
our members for a multi-state prison action in 2016
for federal minimum wage in prisons that we send
you this letter to ask for your support.
IWW members in prison are on the cusp of
starting their own branches. We need your help to
honor the sacrifices they are making by donating
money for resources they need to stay in contact
and hire two organizers to organize a key state’s entire prisons system, including nurturing an outside
support network. This is so that they will not be
able to transfer our prison organizers out of their
state system.
In the spirit of Red November/Black November
we ask that you or your IWW branch:
1. Join the Committee of 100: Pledge $300
this November to be paid by May 1, 2016. We need
100 such donations to meet our budget.
2. Donate what you can. If you can’t give
$300, donate what you can. For every $1 you
donate, a fellow worker will add their own $1 up to
$10,000. Help us raise that $10,000!
3. Start a prison organizing letter-writing
group in your city or region. Or join our Media,
Newsletter, Legal, Outreach, or Research Commit-

Railroad Workers United
Salutes Our Fallen
Fellow Workers
Railroad Workers United (RWU) is a cross-craft
caucus of all railroad workers from all unions,
departments and crafts in North America. To
learn more about our efforts to build solidarity,
unity and democracy on the railroad, see the
website at www.railroadworkersunited.org.
If you would like more information about RWU
and/or if you are interested in hiring
out on the railroad, contact us at:
info@railroadworkersunited.org
206-984-3051

Graphic: Kevin “Rashid” Johnson

Let’s not forget fellow workers organizing in prison

tees. Contact iwoc@riseup.net and we will send
you an introduction packet and connect you to a
regional organizing call.
Checks can be written to the “Kansas City
IWW” and send to P.O. Box 414304, Kansas City,
MO 64141-4304, or find an online option at
http://www.iwoc.noblogs.org.

15

By Colin Bossen
Federico Arcos’ house sat on a quiet Windsor,
Ontario, backstreet near the auto plant where he
had worked. The house was as unassuming as he
was, with a neatly trimmed lawn in front, and a
garden around back that neighbors and friends
planted when he grew too feeble to till it himself. He was particularly proud of his anarchist
tomatoes; small yellow and pear-shaped, he bred
them himself. He bragged that someone from a
nursery cooperative in the Pacific Northwest had
collected the seeds from him and distributed them
because the tomatoes were just that good. Mostly,
though, his visitors weren’t interested in his garden.
Instead they came for his remarkable library and
his extraordinary stories. He was one of the last
survivors of the anarchist militias who had fought
in the Spanish Civil War against the fascist forces
of Francisco Franco, and for an anarchist revolution. He was adamant on that last point. His years
as a militiaman and later in the underground were
not to preserve or resurrect the Spanish Republic.
They were in the service of a democratic workers’
revolution that would abolish capitalism.
The revolution in Spain began the same day as
the civil war. Fascist military leaders tried to stage
a coup and were beaten back as much by anarchist
and socialist workers who stormed the armories
as they were by soldiers loyal to the Republic. In
Federico’s native city of Barcelona, anarchist workers belonging to the anarcho-syndicalist Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (CNT) quickly

took control of the city. Already a member of the
CNT—he joined the union when he was 14—in
the fall of 1936 Federico joined the Juventudes
Libertarias of Catolonia (the anarchist youth of
Catalonia). Alongside other members of the group
he went to the Comité de Defensa where they were
given inadequate weapons—an old rifle and six
bullets. Indignant, they told the older men, “We
want to fight for the revolution as much as you
do!” to which the older men responded, “There
are people here much older than you who need
the newer rifles. When they die you will take their
place. That is your responsibility and our trust in
you.” Federico spent the long balance of his life
proving that he was worthy of that trust.
When the Spanish Republic finally fell in
1939, Federico fled to France, along with hundreds of others. He stayed there first in a refugee
camp and then working in a tool and dye shop
until 1943. Then he returned to Spain where he
joined the military and began organizing with the
anarchist underground. The movement was riddled
with informants and, despite the heroic efforts of
Federico, and his comrades, was largely ineffective.
Federico finally decided to immigrate to Canada,
where he again found work as a machinist, this
time at a Ford factory in Windsor.
Once in Canada, he reunited with his partner
Pura—who had been a militant in the famous
women’s collective Mujeres Libres—and his
daughter. He became active in the Canadian and
American anarchist movements, serving as a men-

ary for him, written on behalf of the
Phoenix IWW, can be found on http://
www.iww.org or various social media
sites under the title above.
Here’s an excerpt:
In June 2015, the Phoenix IWW
and many others mourned the loss and
celebrated the life of William Krist
(or Krazy Bill, KB). He was a friend,
mentor, and grand-fatherly figure to
many of us.
KB was the old man of the IWW in Arizona. Having been
signed up by Aaron R., former General Executive Board (GEB)
member in 2000, KB was the only continuous, paid-up IWW
member in Phoenix from 2000 until his death in 2015. He would
pay his dues in January for the whole year, every year.
For 15 years, KB would come to branch meetings and offer
what he could to the projects the IWW was working on. From
organizing grocery workers at Gentle Strength Co-op, to supporting the Roofers Union’s organizing efforts in the exclusive suburbs;
from distributing workers’ rights cards, to supporting immigrant
workers against racist attacks by the terrorist leaders of “Dumbfuckistan,” (his name for the United States), KB was there.
We’ll miss you, KB!
On behalf of all of us in and out of the Phoenix IWW through the
years — JP

Photo: David Watson

Federico Arcos, anarchist militant & archivist, dies at 94

Federico Arcos.

tor to several generations of activists and working
with Black & Red Books and Fifth Estate Magazine, two anarchist publishing projects based in
Detroit. He also began collecting anarchist materials from Spain and around the world, in an effort
to ensure that the memories of his dead comrades
and the ideals of anarchism would endure. In time
the library he collected proved to be one of the
largest in the world—containing everything from
periodicals, posters and books, so many books, to
Emma Goldman’s suitcase.
Federico’s library and life story attracted scholars and militants from throughout Europe and
North America. He was delighted to share what he
knew and show the thousands of items that he had
saved. He was even happier if his visitors brought
children. He always had sweets for them: a bar of
chocolate, not to be eaten after 4:00 p.m. so that it
wouldn’t spoil dinner, and a box of biscuits.

In November, We Remember:
the best IWW writing
from the past year!
"Radical Works for
Rebel Workers"
collects the best
writing from the
Industrial Worker,
Solidaridad, and other
sources.
This bilingual booklet
features 10
contemporary works
dealing with sexism,
organizing, labor
history, and how to
be a lifelong Wobbly.
Contact the
IWW Literature
Department to order
a bundle for your
branch at
store@iww.org!

Industrial Worker • Fall 2015

16

Industrial Worker • Fall 2015

IS ANYTHING TOO GOOD FOR THE WORKING CLASS?
Russell, Thaddeus. Out Of
The Jungle: Jimmy Hoffa
And The Remaking Of
(Labor In Crisis). Philadelphia: Temple University Press,
2003. Paperback, 288 pages,
$25.95.

By Brandon Sowers

How much is too much for workers to earn?
What standard of living should they expect?
Since the 1960s “New Left” era, there has been
a dominant mood among parts of the U.S. Left
that, perhaps, some workers have it too good and
are part of the problem.
Instead of blaming workers for having too
much, revolutionary unionists should agitate for
more. To paraphrase the American socialist Hal
Draper, we are opposed to business unionism
because in fact it doesn’t get enough for the workers—not because it gets too much! If we’re going
to help revive a militant workers’ movement in the
United States, we have to take a few things seriously.
First, it’s almost impossible to exist in this country as
a worker without being mired in debt; and second,
people will mobilize themselves in huge numbers
if they see a possibility for improving their lives.
Radicals who promise a worse life for the majority of
people deserve the scorn they’ll get.
Drop the word “union” to an average worker,
and they’ll think of Jimmy Hoffa—as corrupt, but
also a tough guy. There’s a reason people know about
Hoffa: at one point, he led the largest union in the
country—the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (the Teamsters)—a union which led large and
militant strikes. In the 1950s and 1960s, Hoffa and
his union were the U.S. government’s biggest target
in the labor movement, and yet left-wing labor
historians almost completely overlook them.
Thaddeus Russell makes up for this lack of discussion on Hoffa with “Out of the Jungle: Jimmy
Hoffa and the remaking of the American Working
Class.” The coverage of Hoffa’s career is really just a
prop to re-examine the American working class.
Russell uses the book as an extended argument
for an idea that we could call “jungle unionism.”
Basically, jungle unionism is extreme free-market
libertarianism, applied to unions. According to
Russell, the best situation for workers is when
unions and union leaders are in a perfect free market (without laws or any government) and have to
compete heavily against each other for the loyalty
of workers. In this theory, the actual ideas and
positions that a union or union leader represents
are irrelevant, at least as far as the workers are
concerned.
The American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) have
been united since 1955, but during the 1930s,
the AFL and CIO were competing to organize
millions of workers. The United Auto Workers
(UAW), who were affiliated with the CIO, and the
Teamsters, who were affiliated with the AFL, each

led city-wide general strikes in 1934. Before the
National Labor Relations Act, passed in 1935, had
stabilized and sterilized the labor movement, there
was an opening for labor leaders who could organize strikes that won. Workers would join unions
in droves if they saw that those unions could deliver better lives. The leaders of those unions would
go from being outcast workers to powerful citizens,
with large dues bases.
As with any emerging market, there was stiff
competition. Russell focuses on Detroit, where the
UAW and Teamsters both grew very quickly. As
cars became more important, so did the workers who produced and transported them. Russell
shows how Hoffa constantly had to fight tooth and
nail against employers to prove to workers that the
Teamsters could get them a fatter paycheck and
more stability than anyone else. With the AFL and
the CIO both competing to attract workers by the
thousands, neither side could afford to pull any
punches during labor struggles. Everything was fair
game, from mass strikes and pickets, to blowing
up trucks that belonged to stubborn employers.
Oftentimes, unions would fight the boss hardest when they were trying to keep another union
out. Since workers were still free to leave or switch
unions, the only guarantee came from showing
that your union could fight the boss better than
another union could.
This dynamic held true for competition inside
the union as well. Hoffa learned how to organize
from Farrell Dobbs, who had led and organized
the 1934 strikes in Minneapolis. Dobbs and Hoffa
worked together in the “Over The Road” campaign, which was a bitter struggle to organize interstate trucking in the Midwest. It was successful and
brought tens of thousands of new members into
the Teamsters. Dobbs and the other Minneapolis
Teamster leaders were also members of a socialist
organization that was critical of Stalinism. In 1941,
when the United States and Union of Soviet Socialist Republics were becoming allies in World War
II, and the Communist Party became enthusiastic supporters of a nationwide no-strike pledge,
Dobbs’ organization still supported labor militancy.
Thus, the Minneapolis local was expelled from the
Teamsters at the same time that the U.S. government arrested all of its leaders for subversion. Hoffa
and his goons rolled into town with baseball bats,
guns, and other tools of recruitment, but workers
were still loyal to the local that had gotten them a
better life. Russell shows how the gangster tactics
alone weren’t enough. In order to crush the old
local, Hoffa had to call militant strikes against
employers that won significant gains. This was the
only way that the workers would actually accept
his leadership. According to Russell, this also shows
that the anti-war, class-struggle socialist ideology
of Dobbs and his comrades was unimportant—for
workers, everything came down to the paycheck.
Russell implies that even here, the competition
brought gains to the workers.
Of course, all of this militancy was expensive
for the bosses, it was disruptive for the war-time

government, and it was dangerous and embarrassing for the union leaders. All three groups had a
big interest in reducing the competition. Labor law
after 1935 provided a perfect mix of ingredients to
remove competition from the field: exclusive representation, dues check-off, and mandatory membership. The Taft-Hartley Act in 1947 and LandrumGriffin Act in 1959 restricted competition even
more. As Russell shows, every time the competition
was reduced between unions and union leaders, the
result was fewer gains for workers and more power
for the bureaucrats.
But is competition between unions as important as Russell claims for labor organizing, or is it
just one dynamic among many? Russell oddly has
not one word to say about another inter-union
struggle involving the Teamsters. The “Salad Bowl
Strike” was a series of militant labor struggles in
California agriculture during the early 1970s,
which the United Farm Workers (UFW) initiated
when the Teamsters attempted to start organizing
on their “turf.” In many ways, this struggle could
confirm the idea of “jungle unionism”—competing with the Teamsters forced the UFW to become
more militant. However, by the end, neither union
could claim victory. Furthermore, the Teamsters
had the support of the white power structure in
California; the UFW was targeted by that same
power structure. The agricultural workers paid
attention to this, and didn’t act as the purely
economic beings that an extreme jungle unionist
might imagine.
I encourage IWW members and revolutionary
unionists to read this book, but keep a critical eye,
and read it alongside Charles Morris’ “The Blue
Eagle at Work: Reclaiming Democratic Rights
in the American Workplace” (Cornell University
Press, 2005) and Joe Burns’ “Reviving the Strike:
How Working People Can Regain Power and
Transform America” (Ig Publishing, 2011). There
are two lessons we can learn. The first, which Russell suggests, is that revolutionaries would get more
accomplished by being a permanent, organized,
militant opposition within unions rather than trying to take them over. I would add that this kind
of opposition needs to promote a vision of a labor
movement which is democratic as well as militant,
and able to completely smash U.S. labor law. The
labor movement needs to do these things in order
to be able to fight with both hands free.
This gets into the next point: the importance of
winning. Many of us Wobblies come from an activist background in which strategy is not considered,
and there are no decisive struggles which involve
winning or losing. This is also a material thing—our
class has been losing for 30 years, and most of us
have never even seen a real working-class victory. But
a movement which had the tactics to fight bosses
and win economic gains would be able to quickly
inspire many workers to organize themselves under
its banners, and carry out more fights.
Let’s make sure that the IWW is the spear
point of that revived labor movement.

“Class war is unceasing in a capitalist society.”
This assertion, so boldly and similarly expressed
in the Preamble of the IWW Constitution, is the
thread that runs through the book, “Continental
Crucible: Big Business, Workers and Unions in the
Transformation of North America,” by Richard
Roman and Edur Velasco Arregui. The authors
cogently claim that a capitalist offensive was convened in all three countries in North America by
the early 1970s and continued through the 1980s
in response to the post-war social democratic gains
made by working people—the worker militancy
that gripped workplaces across the continent, and
the corresponding threat to profits. The North
American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was a
crowning achievement in this class project, bringing with it throughout the last 20 years a relentless
downward pressure on wages and benefits, massive
job losses, a marked upsurge in the immigration
of desperate people, growth in the reserve army
of labor, and the weakening of labor and environmental standards, resulting in the restoration of
corporate power and increased profitability. This is
common knowledge for many of us. What is also
readily apparent to us is that the capitalist offensive
is unrelenting, as manifested most recently in the
attacks on public sector unions and the proposed
Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). What is not common knowledge is what Roman and Arregui so
adeptly document: the development of embryonic
resistance to corporate hegemony, a resistance
that has a potential to take shape across national
boundaries. The authors uncover the sporadic
forms that this resistance has taken, and offer a
necessary vision for a transformed class-struggle
labor movement capable of challenging the continental power of big business.

Free Trade and the Neoliberal Project

The neoliberal corporate project of the last 40
years was spearheaded by capitalist interests who
came together to form corporate lobbying groups
such as the Business Roundtable. These lobbying
groups eventually spurred the creation of conservative think tanks to shape the ideological landscape
and prepare the American public and elected
officials for the rationale for free trade and the roll
back of the social welfare state. Far-sighted capitalists, along with their conservative intellectual allies,

proved extraordinarily effective in uniting their
class around neoliberal responses to the gains made
by workers and their unions over the stretch of the
postwar decades. These efforts eventually gained
success with the creation of the General Agreement
on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), the World Trade
Organization (WTO), Canada-United States Free
Trade Agreement (CUSFTA), and finally NAFTA.
The same can be said for the capitalist elite in Canada and Mexico, despite the social, political, and
economic conditions unique to those countries.
Business groups formed, forged a united outlook
and strategy, and eventually coordinated their lobbying efforts with their counterparts in the United
States to get the free trade agreements enacted.
Though it is commonly assumed that the integration of the North American economy was imposed
by the American capitalist class on Canada and
Mexico, Roman and Valasco argue that free trade
was embraced by those countries’ elites as a means
of tamping down on labor militancy and “excessive” social democratic reforms and opening up
the U.S. market. The larger point is that the North
American corporate class gained success by forging
a tri-national united front. The extension of continental production systems has had the intended
effect of forcing competition between workers in
the three countries. The threat of relocation of
production along with a state that is willing to suppress labor rights in the interest of attracting capital
has transformed the conditions of work and has
therefore increased managerial power. Therefore,
effective resistance, according to Roman and Arregui, can only come if the working classes of each
nation can build transnational solidarity.

Unions and Continental Solidarity

In the second half of “Continental Crucible,”
the authors outline both the obstacles to transnational solidarity and the reasons why we can
remain hopeful that a favorable shift in the balance
of power can be achieved. The main impediment to cross-border solidarity is rooted in the
segmentation of union organization and the lack
of consciousness of each other’s struggles against
the united corporate strategies. In other words, the
strategy that advanced working-class interests in
capitalism’s “golden age” of the postwar era (19451973) is no longer viable in this age of neoliberal
capitalism. It is no longer possible for unions to
focus on short-term gains, or to make strategic alliances with business and reformist capitalist governments that undermine the political independence
of the labor movement. The authors describe that
these “strategies often flowed out of a pragmatism
of the possible, the notion that you have to constrain your demands to what seems possible within
the existing framework, rather than seeking to
challenge the limits of that framework.” Within the
old framework, “large sections of the working class
were able to make real material gains in all three
countries.” This old framework, however, has been
shattered in recent decades by the new business
freedom protected by pro-business governments

that give workers very little leverage.
The answer, therefore, lay in a vision for
building and sustaining a class-wide workers’
movement. This entails a significant change in
the way unions have historically operated; always
treating class-wide concerns as secondary to the
more immediate concerns of their own union
and their own members. The challenge is to free
ourselves from the ineptitude of fragmentation and
segmentation by engaging in class-wide struggles
across borders. In the last sections of the book,
the authors explore the embryonic beginnings of
this kind of class-based, continental labor movement. The authors argue at quite some length that
“an organized core” for a radicalized and reborn
workers’ movement that unites the working classes
across the North American national boundaries
will more than likely develop first in Mexico. The
comparatively greater degree of repression and
poverty, the brutal drug wars, and corruption in
Mexico makes that country ripe for a movement
for fundamental change. Recent, massive immigration of a displaced Mexican working class into the
United States makes more possible than ever before
the development of a cross-border movement. We
saw glimpses back in 2006 with three large and
simultaneous revolts—one in the United States
and two in Mexico. The first was the immigrant
rights movement, which generated over 250 mass
marches throughout the United States in the spring
of 2006, involving approximately 3.5 to 5 million
people. The Oaxaca rebellion, sparked by a government attack on striking teachers, led to a community uprising of workers and poor people who took
over and ran the city of Oaxaca for more than five
months. The third movement took place in the fall
of 2006, when hundreds of thousands of people
across Mexico protested the fraud that transpired
in that year’s national elections. Although these
movements flashed and burned out, the sheer
number of people involved, and the fact that these
movements took place across borders, demonstrates the potential for class struggle to ignite in
Mexico and spread to the other NAFTA countries.
Roman and Arregui point out that the true
challenge of labor and the left more widely is to
find ways to foster the convergence of these kinds
of struggles. The weakness and fragmentation of
a radical, working-class left in all three NAFTA
countries impedes the possibility of challenging the
tri-national corporate hegemony. Hence, the goal is
for us to transform our existing unions from business unions into class-struggle unions, contribute
to building a non-sectarian left movement, and to
reach across the North American borders to our
fellow, besieged workers. A class war is on, and
the other side is waging that war on a continental
basis. It is therefore necessary to unite in solidarity
on a continental scale. Roma and Arregui fall short
in prescribing just how to do this, but succeed in
compelling readers to imagine the necessity and
the possibility for building cross-border, transnational cooperation between unions, the dream of
all Wobblies the world over.

Industrial Worker • Fall 2015

18

Industrial Worker • Fall 2015

LESSONS FROM THE FORA

Deepening our relationships and exchanges with comrades in Argentina
In the past 10 years the Federación Obrera
Regional Argentina (FORA, or Argentine Regional
Workers’ Federation) has experienced growth
and an uptick in activity as a new generation of
organizers has claimed the organization’s heritage
and methods, and has tried to organize in a new
situation. Argentina has undergone deep changes
in the years following the economic and political
collapse of 2001 that rocked the country. As the
economy came unhinged, unemployment surged, a
popular revolt overturned a series of governments,
new forms of collective resistance and organization
emerged, and a neo-Peronist populist response
strengthened nationalist politics in the country.
Today FORA has four locals called Sociedades
de Resistencia (Resistance Societies) in the metropolitan area of Buenos Aires. Historically, Resistance
Societies came out of First International syndicalist
thought in Spain and Latin American countries.
This tradition remained strongest in Argentina,
Chile, Brazil, Uruguay and Paraguay. Resistance
Societies were locals based in an area and often
combined workers of different crafts. Today they
function somewhat like IWW general membership branches (GMBs) with committees of workers
within. FORA workers have been organizing in
restaurants, bars, schools, and in printing.Organizers have taken on grievances and used direct action
across Buenos Aires. The union has a constant presence of propaganda in various neighborhoods and
workplaces, holds regular assemblies for workers
in different workplaces, and organizes committees
when possible. Nationally, the union has been active in publicizing and fighting for the release of oil
workers sentenced to life in prison after a protest led
to the death of a policeman and the workers were
rounded up and locked up in 2014.
Similar to our own experiences in the IWW
during the early 2000s, this push towards direct
organizing of workers meant coming up against
activist and political cultures largely insulated from
workers’ struggles. Wobblies at the time experienced hostility from activists inside the organization and from outside groups. Organizing began
to disrupt activists’ ability to use the union as their
social space and clashed with the uniformity of
those scenes. FORA distinguishes itself from political organizations and activist subcultures through
its activity centered on workplaces and the needs
of workers in their daily lives. Historically, unions
modeled after FORA in Latin America called
themselves “finalist,” meaning that they were built
to meet final goals, the establishment of anarchist
society freed from the state and capitalism. Today
FORA is clear on these goals and stays focused in
their day-to-day work. If people want to try and
reform the existing bureaucratic unions, do activist
work under the FORA banner, or agitate against

Photo: Scott Nappalos

By Scott Nikolas Nappalos &
Monica Kostas

FORA agitating through a large restaurant and bar district in Buenos Aires, March 2015.

the union’s goals, the membership has a culture of
staying on target and keeping those activities outside the union. Meetings are set to discuss unionrelated activities of members and give organizing
advice, and that is moderated and enforced.
In March 2015 I accompanied FORA members who were agitating workers across a large restaurant and bar district in Buenos Aires. The union
played a message over a loudspeaker from their
van, marched with flags with the image of rats (a
symbol for the bosses), and distributed information
about the union and how workers can improve
their conditions.
I also was able to attend a meeting that aimed
to organize teachers and was well-attended by
teachers from the community. This consisted of a
thorough discussion not only of conditions and
unionizing, but also problems with pedagogical
content taught in the schools, the social situation
of students and families, and the intervention of
the bureaucratic unions and state to perpetuate
it. On March 24, FORA celebrated the day of
memory and resistance commemorated nationally
for the victory over the dictatorship in Argentina
that lasted from1976 to 1983. FORA participated
in the march, distributing flyers about repression
against the working class and the need for organization, playing drums and singing songs based
on traditions from soccer and the working-class
struggle in Argentina, and holding banners of the
different resistance societies.
FORA has a long and rich history in being the
largest and most active organization of its kind;
perhaps only behind the Confederación Nacional
del Trabajo (CNT) in Spain. At its peak it was the
dominant force in Argentina’s labor movement
for decades. FORA was formed in the late 1800s

out of anarchist organizing of the first unions
of the country. The unions united in 1901 and
founded a federation, which later grew to a height
of hundreds of thousands of members. FORA
set a model which spread across Latin America to
Uruguay, Paraguay, Chile, Bolivia, Colombia, Peru,
Mexico and other countries. Throughout its history
it took revolution seriously, leading revolutionary
strikes that seized areas and began constructing
a liberatory society in key insurrectionary moments. Also, it faced unparalleled repression with
thousands murdered, deported, and arrested in the
Semana Trágica (Tragic Week—a series of riots, led
by anarchists and communists, and massacres that
took place in Buenos Aires during the week of Jan.
7, 1919), the Patagonia rebelde (the name given to
the violent suppression of a rural workers’ strike in
the Argentine province of Santa Cruz in Patagonia
between 1920 and 1922), the general strike of
yerba mate workers, and throughout a series of
dictatorships. The FORA was attacked repeatedly
by the Radicales (social democratic party), the
dictatorships of Hipólito Yrigoyen and later Juan
Perón, but maintained active unions until its last
congress of 1978 during the brutal dictatorship
that took FORA decades to recover from. At its
height it had multiple daily papers, countless locals
and unions, and was unparalleled in the depth
of its activity and thinking. This history is little
known or discussed but continues today with the
actions of young FORA members who maintain
the same space occupied by the FORA for nearly
a century in the working-class neighborhood of La
Boca. The IWW would benefit from deepening
our relationships and exchanges with our comrades in Argentina who share our same fight with
their own contributions to give.

19

Labor Struggles Across The Globe
Compiled by John Kalwaic
On Aug. 27, five high school students living
in Tokyo and Chiba Prefecture set up a union
called Syutoken Kokosei Union (Union of high
school students in the Tokyo metropolitan area).
The students created the union to help organize
their “black arbeit” (part-time) jobs. The students
are often forced to work long hours and under
harsh conditions—sometimes being made to
work even when school examinations are approaching, or they have to buy merchandise with
their own money to reach unreasonable sales
quotas. This often interferes with their education.
The Tokyo-based union was formed to give
advice to fellow students on work-related problems, as well as coordinate public campaigns on
the streets. The Syutoken Kokosei Union will be
supported by the Syutoken Seinen Union (Tokyo
metropolitan youth union), which is a labor
group comprised of young workers.
— With files from http://ajw.asahi.com.

Massive general strike in Finland
On Sept. 18, a general strike occurred in
Helsinki against government cuts and curbs’ to
workers rights. All railroads and bus lines as well
aircrafts at the airport were shut down as government personnel, transport workers, industrial
workers at metal and wood-processing industries,
even post offices and a portion of police officers
have walked out for one day. Approximately
30,000 people gathered in the Central Railway
Station for a massive demonstration to protest
the government proposals—the largest strike that
Finland has seen since 1917.

Photo: revolution-news.com

Tokyo high school students form union

General strike of 30,000 workers shuts down Helsinki, Finland on Sept. 18, 2015.

The demonstrations were arranged in defense
of collective bargaining rights and against the government’s unilateral decision to weaken employees’ terms of employment.
— With files from http://revolution-news.com.

Oaxacan teachers strike against privatization
Thousands of teachers in Oaxaca went
on strike on Aug. 24, to protest the Mexican
government’s efforts to privatize education.
The Coordinadora Nacional de Trabajadores
de la Educación (CNTE)—the national teachers’ union—also burned ballot boxes in June

2015 to protest the futility of the election, as they
consider all parties to be corrupt. Representatives
of the union, all of whom are teachers, have gone
town-to-town discuss Mexican President Enrique
Peña Nieto’s reforms and what they mean for
education. The CNTE teachers have also brought
attention to the missing 43 student-teachers from
Ayotzinapa. In several cases, troops have been
deployed against the teachers. The CNTE in
Oaxaca have always been one of the most militant
teachers unions in the world.
— With files from http://newpol.org and http://
www.teachersolidarity.com.

SOLIDARITY WITH THE WORKERS OF VIO.ME.
By IWW International Solidarity
Commission (ISC)
The ISC of the IWW helps to build solidarity with
revolutionary unions and organizations worldwide.
We support struggles around the globe, help to spread
the word among our membership and communicate
frequently with our sister organizations. On our
brand new website, http://iww.international, we present the current struggles and calls for solidarity.
Together with our fellow workers from IWW
Greece we are currently supporting workers of an
occupied factory in Greece. The solidarity statement
below gives a bit background to the situation and
highlights our donation campaign:
The ISC and the Regional Organizing Committee of IWW Greece (GreROC) are supporting
the workers of Viomichaniki Metaleftiki (Vio.
Me.), who occupied their factory and have maintained worker-controlled production for more
than two years.

Since May 2011 the workers of Vio.Me, an
abandoned building materials factory in Thessaloniki, Greece, haven’t been paid. Consequently
they decided to take over and democratically run
the production on their own—a successful manufacturing model for a free society. As a matter of
fact, the surrounding society is anything but free,
and capitalist “free market” rules make it hard
to adapt to the alternative concept of industrial
solidarity.
To protect Vio.Me.and the struggle of the
workers in Greece and worldwide YOU can help:

• Spread the Message!
• Contribute Economically: Donate!
http://iww.international/soli-vio-me-greece/
• Organize in your workplace, your neighborhood, your town!
• Send solidarity statements to:
http://www.viome.org
The IWW is committed to a grassroots, global
resistance against the employing class. We aim to
work with others to build a movement that can
defeat the capitalists and construct a new world
based on workers’ control of the means of production and economic democracy. We salute the
fellow workers of Vio.Me. factory as a step in the
right direction, and pledge our solidarity and our
commitment to stand at the side of all workers in
the struggle for the emancipation of the working
class, for the creation of a world without bosses!
Solidarity with Greece’s working class, solidarity forever!

Industrial Worker • Fall 2015

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